"We need to win a couple of elections. This, I believe, helps us better do that," he said. "It allows us to focus on laying out our conservative vision in 2014."

I imagine there are still some conservatives left in the GOP's voter base – people who rankle when they hear statements like this. Paul Ryan is a key GOP leader in the GOP-controlled U.S. House of Representatives. He and his chief, John Boehner, owe their present positions in the House to grassroots voters adamantly opposed to Obama's spend-and-borrow push to socialism. But Ryan worked hard in the aftermath of the 2010 election to help Boehner et al. browbeat the new GOP representatives these voters sent to Washington into betraying them.

Ryan was also the man nominated for vice president in 2012, to help the GOP's elitist-faction poster child, Mitt Romney, dutifully play his part in engineering the re-election of the first anti-American president in the nation's history. Given Romney's consistently leftist background and achievements (including the implementation of the test run for Obamacare in Massachusetts), Romney's nomination offered American voters a choice between Obama and Obama-light.

Once upon a time, America's elections were supposed to offer voters a choice. The challenge was to convince voters that it was an urgent, critical choice. With this in mind, it made sense to nominate candidates who cast critical differences into high relief, energizing their supporters and bringing more voters to the polls on Election Day.

This is all well and good if you sincerely believe in government of, by, and for the people. But if you believe instead in government of, by, and for a domineering elitist faction, the last thing you want is to have pesky, independent-minded voters turning up at the polls to vote for candidates your faction hasn't made and doesn't reliably control. You prefer sham elections, carefully engineered to produce "elected" officials who know that they owe their success to your faction's media and money power, not to the deceived and manipulated voters your skillful use of that power duped into voting for them.

Since the elitist faction consolidated its control of the current sham two-party system, the imperative has been in line with Nancy Pelosi's view that elections shouldn't matter so much. The way to satisfy that imperative is to blur, rather than sharpen, the differences at stake in any given election. With that in mind, Paul Ryan is right to see his collaboration with Patty Murray as a step in the right direction for the GOP.

The result may not satisfy the party's anti-Obama constituency, but it serves the agenda of the forces Ryan and GOP leaders like him actually represent. They no longer see it as their job to serve as representatives of the people who sent them to Washington. Instead, their job is to make sure that what happens in Washington corresponds to the dictates of the elitist forces they now exclusively rely upon to satisfy the thirsty ambition for power.

Hence the hollow notion that elections are about conjuring up a so-called "conservative vision." If GOP leaders were actually engaged in fighting in behalf of their constituents, instead of surrendering to Obama's destructive socialist agenda, they would have no need to fabricate electoral visions. They would be able to point to the ongoing battles they have waged or are waging in behalf of those constituents. They would be able to ask that the voters have the decency and courage to rally 'round them in fateful, decisive contests that will take place at the polling places next November.

But Paul Ryan and his elitist faction cohorts in the GOP would rather use tortuous prevarication and half-truths to prettify their collaboration with Obama and his ilk, the very people their constituents elected them to oppose. To be sure, when posturing for the primaries, or in the very last days before the General Election, they may bleat a little here and there about Obama's threatening abuses.

But their actions contradict such rhetoric. It has no purpose but to apply the goad of fear in order to induce a voter turnout that gives their faction's choice-less, engineered "elections" a fig leaf cover of legitimacy.

Ryan's calculation that the budget deal will boost his party's chances in the 2014 election may be sincere. After all, he has a stake in the rise and fall of the GOP's perceived power. But from the perspective of voters to whom their country's good matters more than party or factional ambition, what's the point of electing partisans so anxious to win hollow victories for their party that they habitually surrender the fight to end Obama's destructive drive to socialism? Rather than rely upon any such partisans, we need to mobilize the hearts and goodwill of the regular folks the elitist faction scorns. We need to make sure that the 2014 election focuses on the difference between those who are serious about ending Obama's anti-American putsch and those who are not.

To end the elitist faction's attack on liberty and the Constitution, we must turn the election of 2014 into a vote of no-confidence in Obama and all his collaborators, whatever party label they wear. It all boils down to a simple question: Which candidates for the U.S. Congress in 2014 will solemnly pledge to make it their first priority to impeach and remove Obama and his ilk from office? If they pledge, we vote for them. If they don't, we send them packing.

Alan Keyes

Dr. Keyes holds the distinction of being the only person ever to run against Barack Obama in a truly contested election – one featuring authentic moral conservatism vs. progressive liberalism – when they challenged each other for the open U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in 2004... (more)

Dr. Keyes holds the distinction of being the only person ever to run against Barack Obama in a truly contested election – one featuring authentic moral conservatism vs. progressive liberalism – when they challenged each other for the open U.S. Senate seat from Illinois in 2004.

During the Reagan years, Keyes was the highest-ranking black appointee in the Reagan Administration, serving as Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations and as Ambassador to the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

He ran for president in 1996, 2000, and 2008, and was a Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Maryland in 1988 and 1992, in addition to his 2004 candidacy for the U.S. Senate from Illinois.

He holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard and wrote his dissertation on constitutional theory.

His basic philosophy can best be described as "Declarationism" – since he relies on the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence to define the premises on which our country was founded, and to which it must remain committed if it is to survive. To Dr. Keyes, the Constitution itself cannot be faithfully interpreted, understood, or applied apart from the divinely-premised principles of the Declaration.

When Keyes ran for president in 2000, the media generally considered him the winner of the Republican primary debates, due to the persuasive eloquence of his defense of the unborn, opposition to unfair taxation, advocacy of school choice, promotion of family values, and focus on what he called "America's moral crisis." As a result, he became the host of MSNBC-TV's "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense" in 2002.

He is best known for thrusting the evil of abortion – which he considers our nation's "greatest moral challenge" – into the national spotlight.

Keyes is also a strong supporter of Israel, and in 2002 he was flown by the Israeli government to the Holy Land to receive an award for his staunch defense of Israel in the media. He is the only American ever to receive such an honor from the State of Israel.

When Keyes ran against Obama for the Senate in 2004, he did so because he was incensed the Democrat "community organizer" refused to support the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in Illinois on several occasions – a measure approved not long afterward by the U.S. Senate, 100 to 0.

Alan is available to address interested venues of students, educators, civic groups, professional organizations, public servants, political advocates, churches, and others who are interested in preserving our nation's institutions of liberty.

To arrange a speech or special appearance by Dr. Keyes, you can email him at: alan@<NOSPAM>loyaltoliberty.com.